III

WHAT IS MAN?

"Men are spirits clad in veils, Man by man was never seen; fill our striving somehow fails, To lift that which lies between."

What is man? According to the evolutionist, man is an evolved animal and natural selection accounts for the existence of the different types. The material scientist traces man's origin from an amoeba and avers that man is matter. The anthropologist also subscribes to the materialistic origin of life, studies remnants of prehistoric man's body. The psychologist similarly believes that man is mortal and confines his investigations to the present life. All have one idea in common, namely that man is matter and mortal.

We differ with these materialistic speculations. We hold that man is not matter but spirit. Man is an immortal monad, a spark of the Divine Spirit, a portion of the Almighty Soul of the universe temporarily encased in matter. Hence in order to know what man is, it is necessary to study vastly

more than his body. It is imperative that we go to the First-Cause, GOD, Who alone is capable of solving the mystery. For God is the All-Inclusive, the Undifferentiated, the Unmanifested of all things. All men, all forms of life have a common origin in GOD.

According to our understanding of evolution, man has always been man and did not evolve from an animal., There is no possibility for a plant to evolve into an animal, or an animal into a human being. History supplies no record of one species producing another type, or a lower species of living matter changing into a higher order of existence. There is no change going on in the lower orders who are said to resemble man by which it is possible that they might become men in the future. The gorilla and the ape, though resembling man outwardly, fail to resemble him inwardly. The great difference between animal and man is not of organic structure; their bodies are similarly constructed and endowed. The difference lies within the quality of spirit manifesting itself through the form. Man is a thinker, a chooser; he has free will, and these qualities reside within himself.

Man is one of four parallel kingdomshuman, animal, vegetable and mineral. While the protoplasmic beginning of the four kingdoms are separate, they emanate from the same source. Each protoplasm can only produce its own kind. An inconceivable amount of variation and specialization can take place of course, but only within the range

of protoplasmic limitation. Discontinuity occurs when a new nature is introduced. If evolution is to work smoothly, consciousness must have been present from the very beginning.

The mineral, plant, animal and human species are the only four that come within the range of human intelligence and experience; but there are innumerable other varieties of life which come before the mineral and after the human. Life is not at the mercy of matter. Life never had a beginning and will never come to an end, but is a continuous and eternal process.

All known substances have their birth or origin in the unknown; all gross objects spring from a subtle origin, and all concrete creations come from an abstract source. Herbert Spencer aptly describes it: "An entire history of anything must include its appearance out of the imperceptible, and its disappearance into the imperceptible."

It was a settled conviction amongst the ancients that man had his origin in Spirit, that he gradually "falls" into matter, eventually reaching the earth-plane. Though temporarily imprisoned in matter, his real existence extends far beyond time and space into realms totally uncomprehended.

"What is man?" Man is a union of spirit and body, PLUS the soul or spirit body which is the intermediate and connecting link between them. The spirit is the innermost principle, eternal and changeless. The soul acts as a covering or body of the spirit. The spirit requires this vesture in

order to realize a separate sense of existence or personality, for without this it would be absorbed in the Infinite ocean of Spirit. St. Paul, the Apostle, makes a sharp distinction between the natural and the spiritual body, the mortal and immortal form. The material body enables the spirit to manifest on earth; for without this dense, physical organism we would be as shadows or ghosts.

Man's inner body the soul, though invisible, is as palpable to other spiritual bodies as physical bodies are to one another. The spirit extends into both bodies and animates the whole. Spirit exists eternally but could not be made manifest or individualized without form.

It is the spiritual and not the physical body which is the seat of sensation and emotion, and which registers all experiences of pain, pleasure, happiness, sadness, moods, etc. The medical profession, which has no knowledge of this inner body, is baffled at the recurrent phenomena of finding people with amputated limbs complaining of pain in the region of the missing parts.

Recently we read of a Marine who had lost an arm tell the surgeon of intense pain in the place where wrist, hand and fingers were. The doctor said the boy was suffering from an hallucination, but admitted the pain might be real and horrible nevertheless. So he injected novocain and the pain in the "phantom" limb disappeared.

This inner body constitutes what is called the animal part of man, for the animal kingdom also

have their spiritual counterpart, and experience sensation and emotion. Likes and dislikes, animosities, and also many good qualities possessed by animals are all expressed through the medium of this spiritual body.

Destruction or mutilation of the physical body in no way affects man's spiritual counterpart. General knowledge of this fact would be of inestimable value today when millions of people have been maimed, crippled, blinded and mangled beyond recognition. Those who believe in a physical resurrection, that the dead wait in their graves to arise in the same bodies, clothes and all, are hard pressed for a plausible explanation for the performance of this feat. How can the dead arise when their bodies have been blown into fragments?

However, ALL men do arise and are resurrected in their spiritual body, which becomes their instrument of expression and manifestation. Bombs, bullets, dynamite and disease destroy only the outer material form. Regardless of the injuries or damage inflicted upon the physical form, the inner body is never mutilated, maimed or scarred.

While injuries to the physical body do not deface the inner body, violations of the moral and spiritual laws do disfigure and deform it. Not only on earth but also on the lower spiritual spheres are there people with repulsive faces and hideously misshapen bodies.

The spirit body reflects the life the person lived on earth, and contains the imperishable record

from the moment of individualization throughout eternity. On earth there is not always a correct correspondence between the type of body and nature of character. The dense physical body acts as a cloak enabling men to pretend to be what they are not, and often dishonorable men occupy honorable positions. Over There dissimulation and hypocrisy are impossible. Death, the great Revealer, shows man as he is morally, mentally and spiritually.

The physical body is nourished and sustained by food, drink and air which are transformed into energy, vitality and magnetism; these in turn sustain the spiritual body. Obviously, judicious eating, drinking and breathing habits are essential. But of vitally greater importance are the quality of thoughts, desires and aspirations habitually entertained; for these are the molders of the spirit body making it either beautiful or ugly. Thoughts even leave their impress upon the physical body, for how a man thinks is written on his face.

Most people take care to eat only pure, wholesome food, with regular periods for rest and recreation. Laws have been enacted forbidding men to labor more than a stipulated number of hours; laws also protect them against the unscrupulous merchants who would sell deleterious and noxious foods. Nearly all comestibles are now subject to rigid inspection, and containers must be honestly labeled, acquainting consumers with their contents. No one will deny that these laws were urgently needed.

But there exists another type of diet about which the average person knows little or nothing, the mental diet. For the soul no less than the body lives and grows on what it feeds. If people were as careless with selection of food for their bodies as they are with mental food, they would soon become seriously ill. The absence of certain fundamental truths from the moral diet results in moral diseases much more disastrous for society than physical maladies. This fact is scarcely heeded. The twentieth century phenomenon of a constantly deteriorating moral diet seems to worry no one, least of all our legislators. Neither they nor their constituents seem to consider the mind of sufficient importance to enact laws forbidding the sale of poisonous and noxious mental wares.

We doubt if there ever has been a time when such quantities of salacious and pornographic material was vended to the public. Fortunes are made selling these wares; fortunes are made in corrupting public morals. Periodicals and newspapers reek with sensuality, vicious and criminal suggestions contaminating the minds of all who read them. Food merchants selling this quality merchandise would soon be fined or imprisoned. But how about poisoned food for the mind? It is high time that mental food should also be inspected, and that purveyors of foul and unfit products be penalized. The damage done to youthful minds is as yet uncomprehended by those entrusted with their education.

Over two thousand years ago Socrates warned his followers against the dangers of indiscriminate partaking of mental food. Socrates, in his Protagoras, admonishes one of his disciples against the practice of committing his mind to one of whom he knew nothing, nor what he had to offer in knowledge.

Socrates says to Hippocrates: "You are going to commit your soul to the care of a man whom you call a Sophist. You do not even know whether you are committing your soul to good or evil." "I certainly think that I do not know," Hippocrates rejoined. Socrates: "Well, but are you aware of the danger which you are incurring? If you were going to commit your body to someone, and there was risk of your getting harm or good from him, would you not carefully consider and ask the opinion of your friends and kindred, and deliberate many days as to whether you should give him the care of your body? But when the soul is in question, which you hold to be of far greater value than your body, and upon the well-being of which depends your allabout this you never consulted either with your father or anyone else."

"For there is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat and drink; the one you purchase and carry away in other vessels, and before you receive them into the body as food, you may deposit them at home and call in any experienced friend who knows what is good to be eaten or drunken, and what is not, and how much, etc.

[paragraph continues] But when you buy the wares of knowledge, you cannot carry them away in another vessel; they have been sold to you, and you must take them into your soul and go your way, either greatly harmed or greatly benefited by the lesson."

What then is this most important part of man, the Spirit? The spirit is always conscious although few of its experiences reach the brain. It has a memory and existence apart from the body and, as Kant says: "What I think as a spirit is not remembered by me as a man." The empirical self, the familiar self, the ego, is not the spirit. This is related to the objective consciousness. Behind the shifting scenes of consciousness, and the kaleidoscopic carnival of sense impressions abides the eternal, changeless, transcendental, pure self. This is the Divine Guest, the Holy of Holies, the God within. The spirit remains pure and undefiled, and in this respect it is correct to say that man is perfect.

In recapitulation: Man is a spirit with two bodies; one material, the other spiritual.

In addition man has a mind, for in order to have soul expression we must think, and so must enter the world of MIND through thought power, which can be greatly augmented through training and study. For a detailed analysis of mind we refer the reader to our previous book, Life and Its Mysteries, and to the chapter UNITY in this one.

The body and brain are compounds and undergo constant alteration. But the spirit is a simple spiritual element and is fixed and unchangeable with no

separable parts. Consequently, it is absolutely impossible for parents to bestow a portion of themselves to their children. The belief, that parents are the creators of their offspring is one of the greatest fallacies entertained by man.

All spiritual thinkers are convinced that the powers of the mind and spirit are derived from their Celestial Progenitor. There is slight reason for believing that mental and moral characteristics are inherited, although many scientists make this claim. Mozart did not inherit what neither of his parents possessed; nor does any other man. Every person inherits himself so far as mental and spiritual attainments are concerned.

Since men are sons of God, it is to Him they owe their primary allegiance. For it is from God and not man that they have derived their inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Of these inherent rights they cannot be lawfully divested by any Government or State, whose sole function is to promote and to protect, and not to usurp these God-given rights. Whenever a Government or State ceases to discharge this sovereign duty, there is no reason why it should continue to exist.

THE INDIVIDUAL IS SUPREME OVER ALL AUTHORITY OTHER THAN GOD. When people are slaughtered for the multiplication of wealth and to appease the insatiable lust for power and ambition of rulers, as in the recent war, the laws of God and the rights of man are

violated. False prophets deliberately mislead the people into disastrous conduct. Kings and rulers are authors of all wars, and dupe the masses into believing that people in foreign countries are their enemies and must be exterminated. Whereas, if people knew the truththat all men are brothers and must learn to live together, they would be free, and wars would be impossible.

What is the remedy? How can the masses be awakened when they do not have access to the truth? How can people know who is the best man to follow when issues are so confused and facts so misrepresented? There is only one safe rule that is: Follow the man who follows God. Then you ask, how can this be ascertained when all candidates are equally voluble in professing allegiance?

The man who follows God keeps His commandments. He does not lie, covet, steal or kill, directly or indirectly. He does not profess to love God, while preaching hatred and violence against man. He does not mock God by making a slaughterhouse of his country. Such men are followers of Baal and worshippers of Marmon, and people have paid dearly for their allegiance to these.

How will the masses be awakened? It will be a spiritual renaissance brought about by spiritual leaders who will spread conviction from man to man and group to group. No materialistic force will be able to oppose or overthrow it. Light will come simultaneously to people all over the world. This work of enlightenment will be aided and abetted by

millions of souls on the Other Side who work incessantly to redress and correct the evils of injustice, persecution and murder. Distorted truths, lying propaganda do not deceive them, who divine its purpose and thwart it at every opportunity. Already there are signs on the horizon that the work of liberation has commenced.

What is man? Man is a child of God and, like his Father has unlimited possibilities. Man is a spirit now; he is immortal now, and is in eternity now.